ldnlksmth wrote:To me, bumping looks amateur. The videos I've seen on you-tube show amateurs using cheesy looking tools...
Anyone who has seen those videos, then sees someone who markets himself as a 'professional' would get the notion that this guy who's charging me upwards of $75 to open my lock isn't any better than the guy on you-tube that made the key with his 3 dollar Wal-mart file set.
If there were a way to make the whole process look like it takes training, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. If it looks like anyone can do it (tools made from every day items that don't require any skill or training to use), then the customer's going to feel ripped off.
To use a comparison, I read an article in an old Locksmith Ledger (from the late 70's) and a locksmith was marketing a tool that is very similar (if not exactly) to HPC's Shovit tool. It involved grinding down spring steel and all kinds of mean nasty ugly things. An editorial in the next issue told of another locksmith who had been using the same process for years, but used a steak knife instead of a specially made tool.
Two things come to mind immediately here:
1: I am paying some guy a lot of money and all he's got is a steak knife? Where's my money going?
2: If he can do this with a steak knife, how many other people can?
Regardless of its effectiveness, who made it or where (for the record, I do use homemade tools pretty regularly) or how much it cost, if it looks like anyone can do it, than anyone will. Read some of the posts in 'customers who do it themselves and fail'. Coat hangers, antennae and myriads of other things being shoved down into doors, because they look like professional tools.
<censored> baffles brains, and keeping up appearances will keep us in jobs.
Personally, i have no qualms with using an easy approach to opening a lock. Whether it's bumping, electric picks or anything else. If a customer is unhappy with the manner in which you picked their lock or they think it's to easy they should go right ahead and do it themselves. The fact that they could damage their lock is their own business. You, as a locksmith, should feel a responsability to caution them as to the possible dangers of attempting this but if they can go online, learn how to bump, and successfully perform it, don't think of it as losing a customer. Think of it as gaining a prospective picker. By discussing techniques on this site you have the possibility of driving away customers. I myself am not a locksmith, and have learned the majority of what I know from the "internets". I agree with the opinion expressed earlier in this thread. If they get nervous by how easy it is to compromise their lock, offer to install a better lock. You have a duty to inform your customers and they will ultimately respect you more for it. Unless you're joking about how much of an idiot they are for paying you all this money to hit a key with a hammer there is nothing unproffesional about bumping. Easy does not equal unproffesional.
